Bose Companion 3 Series II

The Bose Companion 2 speakers are a pair of small desktop speakers with two RCA stereo inputs, 1/8' input, and headphone outputs.

I bought these speakers at Best Buy for $100 so that I would have a good pair of consumer speakers to reference mixes on at home.

These speakers are a very good representation (as a mixing engineer) of what the typical consumer is listening to music on. They have decent clarity in the mid to mid-hi's. The angle at which the casing places the speakers makes it have a good dispersion angle for such small speakers. These actually sound a lot like a good pair of headphones which makes them great for referencing mixes.

These have a somewhat inaccurate bass response. It gets a little 'Drone-ish' around 100-120kHz which isn't typical. I like the idea of 2 RCA inputs but wish there was a way to switch between them without having to unplug - if you leave both plugged in then you will get both sources at once.

Solid build - looks clean and has good functionality. Feels very sturdy and all components on the backside are solid and well built.

Bottom Line? If you're looking for some basic speakers and aren't too concerned with your listening environment or extreme accuracy - these Bose are great. They work perfectly as a reference monitor to check your mixes before you finalize them. At $99 they are probably the best sounding computer speakers you'll get at that price.

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

The Bose Companion 3 V2 are a set of speakers for home audio use.  I have used these speakers with my computer strictly for casual listening and never for any other purposes.  The set comes with a sub woofer as well as two smaller speakers that are on small stands - perfect for your computer desk.  It also has a handy volume controller that is in the shape of a circle.  The size of these speakers is one of the best features as it makes it easy to move from place to place if you need still, while still have a huge and incredibly loud sound if that is what you are looking for.  The sound quality of the Bose Companion 3 V2 is also pretty good and sounds a lot like most of the other Bose speakers out there.  While I definitely like the way that they sound for listening to music on, I would never use these for any audio recording purposes as these just aren't made for that.  If you want to check mixes on these, do so with this in mind and always check on a few different sets of speakers in addition to these, as this is always a good idea no matter what type of speakers you are using.  The price of the Bose Companion 3 V2 is probably a bit too much as is the case with most Bose speakers, as you pay for the brand name.  These are definitely a nice sounding set of speakers but I would encourage those interested in a set of nice speakers to shop around as you can probably find something cheaper if you are concerned with the price.  All in all, I like the way that the Bose Companion 3 V2 speakers sound and would definitely recommend checking them out if you are looking for a set of casual listening speakers.